1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to comparators and, more particularly, to a comparator for comparing two numbers with each other at high speed.
2. Detailed Description of Related Art
A digital comparator is a basic circuit constructed to compare two digital signals A and B with each other and determine whether signal A represents a value that is greater than, less than or equal to the value represented by signal B. For N-bit signals A and B, N exclusive OR gates combined with an AND gate can identify whether signal A is equal to signal B. However, if signal A differs from signal B, bits of signal A should be compared to the corresponding bits of signal B in an order from the most significant bit to the least significant bit to judge whether signal A represents a value greater than the value represented by signal B. Accordingly, the time required for the comparative operation increases as the number of bits in signals A and B increases.